When Capcom brought in a professional screenwriter for the original Resident Evil 2, it was his idea to fully embrace the series' goofy puzzles: 'We’ll just have to make the police chief a weirdo!'

When Capcom brought in a professional screenwriter for the original Resident Evil 2, it was his idea to fully embrace the series’ goofy puzzles: ‘We’ll just have to make the police chief a weirdo!’ | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show PC Gamer Clips Software Codes Coupons Movies & TV Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these Third Person Shooter Arc Raiders design director says players ‘never worked together’ in testing, but the emergence of care bear lobbies ‘encourages us to lean toward giving opportunities to have friendly interactions’ Puzzle Devs behind GoldenEye, Perfect Dark and TimeSplitters are done with big shooters after getting burned by Embracer, so their next game is a Balatro-like twist on Scrabble—and you can try the demo now Horror ‘Art and science and procreation, that’s about all life is good for:’ Two former freeware developers are still trying to keep it weird in an era when companies ‘sell games to people in 5-second clips’ The Witcher Original Witcher story lead says the surprise twist at the end ‘was a mistake,’ because instead of focusing on Geralt the sequel was forced into ‘a story about witchers who are killing kings for some reason’ Gaming Industry How often do we see game sequels totally shift genres? 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It adapts’ RPG The modder who saved Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 1 has been showing off a treasure trove of material from the canceled version of Bloodlines 2 FPS Hellscreen, the FPS with a rear-view mirror, has left Steam early access two episodes short of its original plan: ‘This is a bittersweet experience for me’ Horror Reanimal review: Astonishingly bleak and oblique survival horror Horror The first two Dino Crisis games are on Steam for the first time and half-price, but packaged with Enigma DRM Resident Evil Capcom pleads with its community once again to avoid sharing Resident Evil Requiem leaks: ‘We really want everyone to enjoy the game’s story and experience as much as possible’ Resident Evil Resident Evil: Revelations 2 was overlooked, but it was great survival horror PopularNEW: PC Gamer Clips!Arc RaidersBest PC gearFalloutGame Quizzes Games Horror Resident Evil When Capcom brought in a professional screenwriter for the original Resident Evil 2, it was his idea to fully embrace the series’ goofy puzzles: ‘We’ll just have to make the police chief a weirdo!’ News By Wes Fenlon published 25 February 2026 In an alternate timeline, Resident Evil could’ve become a lot more serious. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Capcom) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter PC Gamer Get the PC Gamer Newsletter Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? Every Friday GamesRadar+ Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you’re going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them. 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From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we’ve got you covered. Signup + Once a month SFX Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month! Signup + An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter While Capcom has been on a roll with the last few Resident Evils, earlier in the series’ life things didn’t always go so smoothly. Resident Evil 2 was rebooted about 70% of the way through its development, with the original version eventually dubbed Resident Evil 1.5. Later it would take Capcom multiple restarts to settle on a direction for the masterful Resident Evil 4. Both ended up being huge hits, but if either development story had worked out differently, it’s likely both survival horror and action games would look a lot different today. I mean, imagine living in a world where Resident Evil isn’t goofy as hell.”It was all too realistic. The ominous atmosphere from the first game, as represented in things like the Spencer Mansion itself, the armor room, key items like the jewelry box and gemstones… all that had been removed,” Resident Evil 2 writer Noboru Sugimura said in an interview way back in 1998, as translated by Shmuplations. There he was speaking about that canceled “1.5” version of RE2 that Capcom abandoned—when he joined the project mid-development, his first bit of advice was to rewrite it.Initially, the police station was too modern, and Sugimura felt that the gam